


My kingdom for your KARMA

by FoxyRainbow



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of sexy skele-magic that never really turn NSFW, Ravioli were in fact harmed in the making of this, So how did Sans end up in the Underfell world?, Who knows? Certainly not the writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 22:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxyRainbow/pseuds/FoxyRainbow
Summary: Karmic retribution works wonders on the king who has too many sins on his back.





	My kingdom for your KARMA

I am a king in crisis, counting minutes  
There is an ending to my reign  
My sins have come to face me, I can feel it  
That I have lived my life in vain 

~?~

Papyrus stabbed through an innocent ravioli, bringing it on eye level and proceeding to glare it back to hell, where it belonged.  
It was its devilishly good taste that had ensured its doom to the deepest pits of Hades, but that was besides the point.

"EXPLAIN IT TO ME," he demanded, pointing the fork-pierced ravioli at his brother.  
"EXPLAIN HOW A SMALLER, _WIMPIER YOU_ EARNED THE FREEDOM TO BE COMING AND GOING IN A WORLD THAT ISN'T HIS, BECAUSE THE MOST POWERFUL, FEROCIOUS MONSTER IN THE UNDERGROUND DECIDED HE IS IMPORTANT!" he squawked, the image of the _other_ Sans, the Sans that wasn't his, complete with ketchup-stained hoodie and pink slippers _slipping_ in his mind. 

"FOR THAT MATTER," he raised a gloved hand, "FORGET THE FIRST PART OF THE SENTENCE. EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THAT-"  
Sans?  
No, that simply wasn't right.

"-_SKELETON_," he decided, "MADE HIMSELF IMPORTANT TO _ASGORE_."

The familiar to him Sans, the one decidedly more red-flavored than his smaller counterpart looked up from his plate, licking marinara sauce off his phalanges.  
"your guess is as good as mine, boss."

Refusing the very premise of the response, Papyrus shook his head violently. "_YOU'RE_ A SANS. YOU SHOULD BE CAPABLE OF HOLDING ALL THE VARIABLES OF THIS EQUATION."  
"i love it when you talk dirty to me," the smaller skeleton's permanent grin widened as he leaned back on his chair.  
"YOU'RE NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY!" Papyrus narrowed his eyesockets, red eyelights glowing ominously in their depths.

"a conspiracy for inter-world domination?" Sans dug a pointy finger in-between his teeth, searching for traces of food.

"TRY AGAIN," Papyrus demanded, squeezing his fork in his hand.  
"blue-balls makes killer scones the king can't find elsewhere," Sans glanced on the table, on a spot he predicted his younger brother's fingers would soon begin tapping, as his patience wore thinner still.

"BLUE-BALLS, REALLY...? THAT IS THE BEST YOU COULD COME UP WITH?!" he sounded almost disappointed.  
"it's a work in progress," Sans shrugged, glancing from Papyrus's angry eyelights to his fingers that were tapping the anticipated spot.

"maybe he sucks really good dick and-"

"WHY DO I EVER TRY TO HAVE A SERIOUS CONVERSATION WITH _YOU_ IS BEYOND ME," Papyrus sighed in exasperation, hiding his face in his hand.  
"it's a possibility," Sans shrugged once again, his shoulders reaching higher than before. "speaking of possibilities, boss, you look like you could use one, yourself. you seemed stressed out."

Imaginary eyebrows were raised as the smaller skeleton wore his most seductive look, conjured tongue licking over his sharp teeth, eyelights flaring as they studied the royal guard. Papyrus spread his fingers around one eye socket, observing Sans intently.

"THIS IS NOT THE TIME."  
"suit yourself."

He slipped off his chair, feet landing on the pair of socks he had secretly taken off when Papyrus wasn't looking. He discreetly kicked them under the table and turned his back on his younger brother.  
"i'll be in your room."

"WE NEVER DID SOLVE THE MATTER OF THE BLUE SANS'S AND THE KING'S STRANGE RELATIONSHIP," Papyrus pointed out, folding his arms, fixing his eyes on his Sans's softly swaying hipbones.

The third shrug of the night, a well-practiced work of art, reached heights its brethren could have only dreamt of.  
Before Papyrus had a chance to complain, he snapped his fingers and disappeared, finding himself sprawled on the taller skeleton's bed seconds later.

Not wanting to seem too eager, Papyrus decided he would sit in his chair quietly and count to a hundred, before joining Sans for all manner of _possibilities_.

He managed a solid twenty.

~?~

The large muzzle closed around the left side of the skeleton's rib cage, sharp teeth grazing sensitive bones.  
Sans hissed and flicked the Boss Monster's thick, ridged horn, forcing the king to immediately unlatch himself from the spot he had been working on capturing for the past few minutes. 

"ouch," he complained, glancing down to find small bite marks marking the majority of that side's ribs. An apologetic pink nose soon stole his line of sight, exhaling softly over the bite marks.  
"we've been through this, your majesty. 1 HP."

Gentle padded fingers armed with deadly claws hooked themselves around his floating ribs. "For starters, you look delicious," Asgore rumbled, nuzzling the skeleton's sternum. "Secondly, how else will I mark my territory?"

He wrapped his fingers around Asgore's horns, pulling the monster's head up and finding puzzled ruby-red eyes staring at him.  
"we've been through _that_, too. none of this is your _territory_," freeing a horn, he gestured at his naked body with two fingers.

A flash that could be anger or unearned jealousy crossed the king's eyes and he let out a low growl.  
Asgore (this Asgore, _his_ Asgore, any Asgore, Sans guessed) was never too good with the concept of _boundaries_.  
He raised a non-existent eyebrow, the edges of his permanent grin lowering. 

"Alright, already, I get it," Asgore growled, looking away from Sans, still keeping his fingers tightly hooked around the tiny for his hands ribs.  
"only sometimes," Sans pulled at the horn he was still holding and the large monster lay his head gently on his rib cage, claws gently stroking up and down his lumbar.

"I want you all to myself," the king protested, closing his eyes and nuzzling Sans's humerus, as the small monster wrapped his arms around the massive head.  
"that's fine, mostly, so long as i keep finding it fine. it doesn't mean you _own_ me, though," he pointed out, burying his face in black curls. "there's a major difference that you can't forget."

It was the first rule Sans had established. A rule that helped him think he still had any control over how this relationship was advancing.

-

The Red version of himself was the only monster he had ever really cared to meet when he found himself in this strange, fucked-up world; essentially the uglier, _dustier_ version of his own.  
Even he, was purely a means to an end- if he wanted to go back to his _own_ world, there was only a _Sans_ that could help with that.  
No _reasonable_ Sans would want to keep an alternative version of themselves in their territory.  
On principle, Sanses hated themselves.

The Edgy version of Papyrus had proved impossible to stay away from; the boy had no concept of privacy or personal space, which really came to no surprise. 

Inevitably almost, the day the dogs showed up on the edgy brothers' doorstep, looking for him, came. It was the day Sans could no longer deny, he had royally fucked up.

To his confusion, the darker counterparts of Papyrus and himself had tried to hide him. To their shock, he had decided to surrender.

He had made for a model prisoner - he didn't once try to take a _shortcut_ away from them. Not when they continuously snapped their teeth at him, not when they pushed him, not as they laughed at how slowly and painfully the king would torture and dust him, not even when they were walking _slower than Gerson could ever dream of_.

Not when he was presented to a dark, LOVE-pumped caricature of his own king. 

Sans had answered all his questions, quick and honest, keeping shaking, balled-up fists securely shoved in his pockets, calm expression plastered over his permanent grin, presenting his cool act as best as he could.  
Nothing he could do about the snuffed-out eyelights, of course, that judging by that smug, sharp-toothed grin Asgore had given him, had doomed that act to fail.

Until the moment the king offered to grant him a quick death, Sans had every intention of playing nice.  
He allowed the larger monster to attempt to pierce him with his trident a total of four times, teleporting just slightly out of the way during each one, informing Asgore it was _too bad he had missed again_.

He still didn't quite know how those glowing, murder-seeking eyes had seen through his other, decidedly more permanent act, the one Sans always had on. The one that smelled of ketchup, kept itself warm in a hoodie he should probably get around to washing one of these days and a pair of fuzzy slippers. Before he knew, Asgore had dragged him inside the constricting bars of a battle screen, asking him to prove he was a formidable enemy.  
Sans had no intention of _that_, either, at least until Asgore mentioned he could always invade _his_ world, seeing as how the small skeleton had burged in his.

It was that moment Sans had decided to strike, finding that Asgore seemed to have a weakness almost identical to his.  
_It only took one hit to bring him to his knees._

The trident was tossed away unceremoniously as the monster fell to his knees, howling in pain, eyes widened in horror.  
Hunched over, he hugged himself and buried his face on the marble, dusty floors. 

"What... What is... _What are you doing to me?!_"  
Sans took a step closer, observing the king's face, twisted in pain and terror.  
"KARMA is a bitch, your majesty."

The king's next attack was weak, disheartened.  
_Sans's_ next and final attack left the massive monster heaving on the floor, clutching on his torn cape the way a child would their favorite blanket.  
"i take it you don't have a judge here," was all Sans figured he could say at that very moment, watching as the dark ruler hid his face in his cape.

He fell down on one knee, closely observing the large, shaking hand the king had buried in his sea of black hair.  
A single hit from that hand, presuming it would find its target, was more than enough to turn Sans into a dusty memory.

"the more sins you have, the more it _burns_ when they crawl down your back," he informed the monster, deciding that was a good time as any to grant him MERCY.  
Asgore remained still and quiet for a few moments, before accepting Sans's mercy, allowing the screen to fade away.

When the dark-haired sovereign found it within himself to raise his head off the ground, Sans was nowhere to be found.

-

"I had two children, once. A son of my own, a beautiful baby boy... and a human, that fell down the mountain."

Sans leaned against the throne's frame, observing Asgore (dark Asgore? _other_ Asgore? Sans needed to figure a nickname out) as he wandered through his garden, watering and carefully checking on every single flower as he went along.

The beautiful, golden flowers, exactly identical to the ones his own Asgore grew in his garden clashed horribly with the rest of this world's aesthetic.  
Still, somehow, here they were, cared for by the largest omen of death Sans had ever met.

"Asriel and Chara," he informed the small skeleton, keeping his eyes fixed on his flowers.  
"had?" it was the first time Sans had spoken since the dog guards had brought him back to the palace.  
Admittedly, the whole experience had been significantly _gentler_ and _quieter_ than his first encounter with them.

"Humans," he snarled, glaring at his watering can like it, alone, carried the responsibility of his children's death. "My son _dusted_ before my very eyes. My child, the _one_ good thing the humans ever sent me, spent their short life scarred and terrified of them, before they were _snuffed out_ like a candle."

He lifted his eyes on Sans.

"They locked us down here, they took everything _we_, as a whole, the _Monsterkind_ had and then, they took my children," he growled, his voice _breaking_ for just a second. A second Sans didn't miss.

Questions gathered in the small monster's mind, but he decided to remain quiet, finding them all invasive and insensitive.  
This was a pain you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy - not even the LOVE-crazed king of a parallel universe.

"We _had_ to become strong, break free, _destroy_ the humans that did _this to us_-"  
"so you gathered LOVE and kids' souls, in anticipation of the war you would wage on humans once you managed to break the barrier," Sans shook his head. "but how many did you kill in the name of your cause? not humans," he raised a hand, leaving Asgore with his next sentence stolen and his mouth hanging open."monsters. you don't gain as much LOVE as you did, big guy, killing six children."

"You don't," Asgore admitted, deciding to save the question of _how did this strange little skeleton know how many human souls he had gathered_ for a later time. "Everything else was a necessary evil. There was war brewing. The weak would perish, the strong-"  
"the strong would become shades of their former selves, torturing and killing for the fuck of it."

Asgore narrowed his eyes, showing off his teeth. "I _explained_ to you that-"  
"you explained to me that you're a disgusting excuse for a king that destroyed his own world."

Shocked ruby-reds gazed into empty eyesockets, before dropping back down in the garden.

"we lost the surface, we watched so many monsters fall down over and over again. yeah, my king killed those six kids, too. he would have to kill a seventh if one ever made it in the underground but _you_ are just a sadistic fuck looking for an excuse to satisfy your battle-lust."

"_Listen_ to me," he started, snarling each word out, taking large steps closer to Sans.  
"_you_ listen, buddy," Sans snapped, an idea of cyan flame lighting his left eye up. "i'm done listening. you know what humans are made of, you know your kind doesn't stand a chance against them. no, not even when you're LOVE-filled and gunning for vengeance. you know, but you let your anger get the best of you and you took a world of monsters that counted on you for guidance, twisted and broke them. your _pain_ doesn't justify everything you did and all the lives you took. and you know what?"

A final step, closed the distance between them and the pair of white faces were mere inches away from one another.  
"you know i'm right. you know it and if you have _anything_ left in your miserable soul, it _stings_ harder than those sins crawling down your back."

Asgore was stuck staring at him, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. When his gaze dropped, so did he, on his knees, before the small skeleton.  
Startled as he was, Sans managed to remain still.

"You're not telling me something new," the large monster eventually managed. "LOVE is supposed to numb you. That's what the books will tell you. It doesn't. Not to the extent I was promised. And when you get to feel its true weight, when it _burns_ through you..."  
He shook his head, unsure of how to finish the sentence, or if there even was a need to finish the sentence.  
"You burned me, Sans."

"you burned yourself, big fella," the skeleton corrected him, eyelights returning as the king hang his head.

"Help me."  
" 'scuse me?"

Asgore closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. "You are the _Judge_. You judged, you found me guilty. After a judgement, comes punishment. Punishment is supposed to bring us to-" he opened his eyes, letting Sans finish his sentence.  
"the suckiest word association game in the history of sucky games?"  
"Penance," the king sighed.

If Sans ever had eyebrows, they would have shot right off his face and reached for the heavens.  
"you want me to help you... repent."  
"Repenting is my business. I need you to help me with everything else," he explained, realizing faster than Sans could point it out that he made no sense.

"buddy, i ain't here to fix you. i don't really think i can fix you. i'm just waiting to get back into my world and forget this sorry piece of a reality ever existed in the first place. what would 'anything else' even mean?"  
"I don't know," the Boss Monster shook his head. "I don't know what I want, I don't know what to do, what I do know is that _you_ jumped in here from another world and broke me with a click of your fingers."

"_you_ broke you," Sans corrected him again, pointing the aforementioned fingers at him. "i have zero responsibility to help you or your murder land. i just have to get-"

His fingers disappeared in a mass of hair and claws, pressed against soft pads as Asgore suddenly wrapped a hand around them. "I'm _asking_. I'm not ordering. I'm not devising a plan to keep you prisoner. I _need_ your help, if you are willing to give it to me. If you are willing to believe-"

"that you _can_ be helped?" Sans asked, confused eyelights fixed on their connected hands.  
"buddy, i'm just dorothy looking for her way back into kansas. i didn't come here to be handed the reins of your mental state, or the reins of your messed-up kingdom."

"Then you don't believe I _can_ be helped? You don't believe I can fix this?" he tilted his head, free hand gesturing vaguely around the room. 

He wanted to say no. Looking back at that moment, he probably should have said no - it was, after all, what he was thinking.  
But then, there was that voice in the back of his skull, stopping him. That tiny little voice, that would sound like Papyrus, if his baby brother had such a thing as an inside voice.

Maybe he didn't believe the monster could change, maybe he never would.  
But then, maybe the point was for _Asgore_ to believe he could change. Then, perhaps, he would put in the _effort_.

"this isn't my world. i don't plan to stay," Sans ended up saying.  
"You figured out how to come here - you can come back," Asgore shook his head. "I will reward you."  
"you want me to world-hop every so often to come supervise your penance? do you have any clue how-"  
"I won't send guards after you, or chase you," he let go of Sans's hand and stood up. "You can come back if you wish to. I am going to put out a decree, that you are not to be hurt."

Not wanting to give Sans the chance to answer at that very moment, he turned his back, hanging his watering can on his forefinger.

-

He had found the two Asgores shared the strangest similarities.

The flower garden, for one. The pink, _nuzzly_ noses. The massive coat of white fluff that got freaking _everywhere_.  
Sans was suspecting the dark Asgore was dyeing his hair, even.

When Asgore sent no more monsters for him, Sans was slightly shocked.  
When he found himself willing to return after the Red Sans managed to send him back to his world, he was even more shocked.  
Not downright _horrified_, like Red was when he saw him again, but shocked nonetheless. Perplexed. Baffled with himself.

In Asgore's case, _repenting_ meant changing the rules of the world, the status quo that had shaped it into the nightmare land it was.  
It was not, by any means, an easy project. Not unless they wanted the LOVE-crazed critters living far and wide to decide their king was now weak and revolt.

Rooting out the anger and violence living in the Boss Monster's SOUL was a different concept altogether, one that Sans thought was doomed to fail but somehow, he found himself pushing through. More importantly, he found Asgore was _trying_.

Even through the most _trying_ of times.  
Heh.

If anybody asked at what point did his relationship with the darker ruler took a different turn, Sans would feign ignorance.  
It wouldn't be a pure lie, in retrospect, the details of that first night were a tad hazy. Perhaps too crazy for Sans to clearly remember. 

He recalled the image of Asgore kneeling in front of him, placing his head on his lap. He remembered his own bonefingers slipping under the monster's shirt, getting lost in soft fur.  
He remembered that snout he was stroking now disappearing somewhere between his legs.

"i have to return at some point, you know," Sans muttered lazily, the tip of his phalange pressing the pink nose.  
"I'm giving you the day off," Asgore said, pressing his snout in the skeleton's hand.

"i can't take the day off from _you_ and have it count in my world, your majesty."  
"_There's_ a law we need to change," the Boss Monster offered, glancing up at the skeleton's face.  
"ain't that the truth," Sans's grin widened and he cupped Asgore's face, studying the red eyes, finding them looking dimmer than usual. "hear me out for a moment, huh?"

"I _always_ hear you out, Sans. That's kind of the point of all of this," Asgore said.  
"unless you don't feel like hearing me out, in which case you chase me around the room, teeth-first."  
"You can evade me. You can always evade me. I wouldn't be doing it if you couldn't," the king explained, his voice softening, taking on a tone reserved for the otherworldly skeleton _alone_.

"that's 'cause you're getting slow in your old age. seriously now. hear me out - me reminding you that you don't _own me_ doesn't mean i don't want to be here. and _here_, more specifically," he eyed the space between their bodies.

Asgore pulled himself up, shifting to a kneeling position between Sans's legs, gently pushing his fingers under the skeleton's rib cage, thumbs stroking the length of the top false rib.  
"I'm _possessive_," he growled softly. "I want you to be mine, body and soul. _Every time_ you leave this world I remember I can't stop you leaving for good. I remember you _belong_ somewhere else, under another king and _that_-"

"yeah, king fluffybuns and i don't have _that_ type of relationship. we never will, either," he drew his knees higher, reaching his hands out, to touch Asgore's torso.  
"You didn't answer that _other_ thing," the Boss Monster pointed out, fingers slipping off the skeleton's rib cage and back on his lumbar, scratching softly down to his hipbones.

Sans let out a sigh, studying the monster's expression. "i can't tell you i won't leave one day to never come back," he admitted.  
Asgore's expression darkened. His fingers, now wrapped around the edges of Sans's femurs, suddenly went still.  
"i wouldn't just _not return_ with no warning, okay? i'm not that much of a jerk. _but_ I can't promise you this will last forever. your forever, my forever, either way. we have _now_... and we will have the next time, until otherwise stated."

The soft fingers were moving again, traveling higher. A couple of them slipped in the core of his pelvis, the spot his magic was concentrated.

"Is that all I can ask of you?" Asgore asked, reaching down, trapping Sans's patella gently in his teeth.  
"that's all you can ask of anyone," Sans informed him, cheekbones taking on a blue tint, eager eyelights glancing down, to where his magic swirled around the king's fingers, obeying to his will, taking on a more appropriate form.  
"Fair enough," Asgore smiled down at his unlikely lover. 

"well, i _am_ the judge."

They were the last words Sans managed, as Asgore went on to remind him just how _talented_ those deadly fingers could be.

~?~

"does edge know?" Sans asked, amused eyelights wandering over Red's cigarette.  
"for the last time, his name is papyrus," the other skeleton growled. "and no. he won't, either."

"you think he won't smell it all over you the moment you enter the house?"

"you know what else he's beginning to smell?" Red redirected the conversation, glancing guiltily at his cigarette before taking another puff. 

"your bullshit?" Sans loved this game.  
"_yours_," Red pointed out, slightly amused. "he ain't stupid, he's going to put two and two together one of these days. i'm still trying to figure out what you do to death goat and you've got him wrapped around your finger. how _good_ are you at sucking dick?"

It was a wordless agreement, one that very literally went without saying, that Sans and Asgore wouldn't disclose the specifics of their relationship to anyone.  
With the exception of Red, as Sans had decided one lovely evening.

Worth it, just to see that expression of utter horror, even when he was forced to clean all the mustard his red-tinted twin had spat out on the floor.

"we're making a better world for your fucked-up monster buds, aren't we?" Sans shrugged. "why does it matter how it's being done?"  
"you're making a better world for _boss_ and that's what matters at the end of the day," Red whispered, circling the house and stopping in front of the basement door, digging into his basketball shorts for his key.  
"speaking of-" he pushed the door open and turned the lights on. At the very end of the workshop, hidden behind the broken machine, was the door the pair of Sanses had installed, realizing that popping in and out of existence in a world that was not the blue Sans's own was decidedly much more work than opening a door.

While he had watched them work, Papyrus had caught himself wandering if he should point out that what they were doing to install that door in the first place was in fact, painstaking, time-consuming, not to mention brilliant _work_, but he was well aware saying the forbidden word around a pair of Sanses would result in them turning into sock-abandoning, condiment-consuming slugs with matching existential crises.

This whole mess had gotten him thinking how difficult it may have been to create that self-sustaining trash tornado his brother kept in his room.

"-hasn't _your_ papyrus noticed you're coming and going?" Red finished his sentence.

Sans rubbed the back of his skull. "papyrus knows what i'm doing."

Red stared at him in disbelief, eyesockets blinking rapidly. Sans's eyelights disappeared in the back of his skull. "he wasn't exactly going to _miss_ my popping in and out of world, was he?"

"did you mention all the spicy, goat-dick-sucking details?" Red's grin widened, earning a glare from Sans.  
"i mentioned everything else," he pointed out. "he thinks i'm doing good and important work and he's, uh, proud of me," he rubbed the back of his skull harder.

"what i'm hearing is, you gave him _standards_ to _hold you to_," Red's grin seemed to droop.

The machine was soon pushed out of the way, with both Sanses thinking this was more manual labor than they were made for and they should go rest for about twelve hours after this.

"hey," it was Red's turn to awkwardly rub the back of his skull.  
"hey, myself," Sans shoved his hands in his pockets.

"don't end up _dust_ one of these days, okay?" he said, red eyelights focusing on his alter ego's fuzzy slippers. "always remember who you're dealing with."  
"oh, if i had a heart, it would be bursting with joy, he _cares_ about me," Sans's grin grew wider and he snickered when Red gave him his best murderous glare. "don't worry, red. all things considered, he's improving."

A pair of red-filled eye sockets were narrowed, as Red studied Sans quietly. "shit."  
"what?"  
"you're _actually_ into him."

Sans stayed quiet, scratching his jawbone. He wouldn't be caught dead admitting he had feelings for Asgore, _dark_ Asgore, but he couldn't really lie to himself, either.  
Sanses were never really good at that.

"shit dude. that's a _terrible_ idea," Red pointed out, eye sockets widening.

"i know," Sans shrugged. "it was mine."

~?~

Asgore.  
As-gore.  
Gore? Gore-y.  
Gorey. 

Sans decided he would call his darker Asgore, Gorey.  
It suited him.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is something completely random I came up with last night, it's mostly based on things my girlfriend and I roleplay.  
The lyrics in the beginning of the story are from the Kamelot song "Karma", which is where the inspiration for the title came from, as well.


End file.
